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No one is born with the instinctive sense of what constructs beauty and ideal body shape. Instead we are brought into a world that teaches us how to embody cultural standards of beauty by which we must adhere to. The average teenage girl spends a considerable amount of time watching television shows and advertisements plastered with thin body ideals. Therefore, television presents a considerable amount of information and images to suggest how we need to look, in order to succeed in life and be popular. They are very boisterous when it comes to forcing thin ideals on young women but seem quiet when it comes to the negative effects. This paper was written to explore the relationship between television viewing and young women’s perception of their bodies. In every home there sits an unknown intruder lurking around just waiting to contaminate the minds of young women. The intruder is square in shape and ranges in sizes 10 to 73 inches. This meddlesome squatter I speak of is non-other than your television box. The average adolescent in the United States watches about 20,000 television commercials a year (Gentile & Walsh, 1999). With that being said we never stop to realize just how much time we spend or how the viewed content is affecting us. Let’s face it televisions are everywhere; in our homes, in the stores and sports bars. Fact of the matter is television is the most popular form of mass media and that’s because it has the greatest mass appeal, acceptance and is convenience. Corporations exploit and use television as an outlet to market their products; they see television commercials as an elaborate gateway which allows more and more companies to buy into the artificial beauty augmentations in order to gain financially. W... ... middle of paper ... ...rtising, 23(2), 49-64. Monro, F. B., & Huon, G. (2005). Media-Portrayed idealized images, body shame, and appearance anxiety. International Journal of Eating Disorder, 38(1), 85-90. Barrie, G. (2012). Media and appearance. The Oxford Handbook of the Psychology of Appearance, 455-467. Bessenoff, G. R. (2006). Can the media affect us? Social comparison, self-discrepancy, and the thin ideal. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 239-251. Yamamiya, Y., Cash, T. F., Melnyk, S. E., Posavac, H. D., & Posavac, S. S. (2005). Women's exposure to thin-and-beautiful media images: body image effects of media-ideal internalization and impact- reduction interventions. Body Image, 2, 74-80. Posavac, H. D., Posavac, S. S., & Posavac, E. J. (1998). Exposure to media images of female attractiveness and concern with body weight amoung young women. Sex Roles, 38(3/4), 187-201.
Media has a negative impact on females’ body image by promoting artificial beauty. Women often become dissatisfied with their bodies, which cause them to develop eating disorders. Body image affects a woman’s perceptions and feelings about their physical appearance when looking in the mirror. The media portrays unrealistic beauty of women who are thin with perfect hair and make-up. Many women who expose themselves to the unrealistic standards of the media often idealize, covet, and become very insecure. The many women who do not expose themselves would influence others to perceive their physical appearances as beautiful. “Many popular magazines for females tell women to focus on their physical, outer attributes (i.e. body shape, muscle tone, bone structure, hair, makeup, clothing, etc.) and rarely mention the importance of being smart, sophisticated, funny and/or possessing many other positive attributes that have nothing to do with physical attributes” (Sparhawk 1). Obviously, the media’s representation of the thin ideal connects to the majority of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders. In other words, the media’s use of unrealistic women sends a hidden message that in order for women to be beautiful they must be unhealthy. The importance of physical appearance is encouraged at an early development for most girls. For these reasons, the connection between media and body image is very important because low body image will lead to eating disorders and potentially death.
Media is a wide term that covers many information sources including, television, movies, advertisement, books, magazines, and the internet. It is from this wide variety of information that women receive cues about how they should look. The accepted body shape and has been an issue affecting the population probably since the invention of mirrors but the invention of mass media spread it even further. Advertisements have been a particularly potent media influence on women’s body image, which is the subjective idea of one's own physical appearance established by observation and by noting the reactions of others. In the case of media, it acts as a super peer that reflects the ideals of a whole society. Think of all the corsets, girdles, cosmetics, hair straighteners, hair curlers, weight gain pills, and diet pills that have been marketed over the years. The attack on the female form is a marketing technique for certain industries. According to Sharlene Nag...
Derenne, Jennifer L., and Eugene V. Beresin. "Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders." Academic Psychiatry 30. June (2006): 257-61. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.
National Eating Disorder Association (2006). The media, body image, and eating disorders. Retrieved October 11, 2008, from http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
While women have made significant advances over the past decades, the culture at large never fails to place a strong emphasis on the way women look. The new standards for beauty are ultimately causing dramatic influences on adolescent females and their body image. Anyone who is familiar with American culture knows that these new standards for beauty is proliferated through the media. No matter the source, we are constantly surrounded by all kinds of media, and we continue to construct ourselves based on the images we see through the media. The more young girls are surrounded by the “thin ideal” kind of media, the more they will continue to be dissatisfied with their bodies and themselves. Thi...
The mass media portray many ideal pictures that might influence audiences’ perceptions about what is desirable and popular. In the field of exploring the relationship between media and people’s perceptions, media ideal body images have received much research attention. Previous studies showed that media ideal body images cause social comparison behaviors (Lennon, Lillethun & Buckland, 1999; Luthe, 2009; Knobloch-Westerwick & Romero, 2011), which were blamed to cause negative outcomes, such as lowering people’s self-esteem (Clay, Vignoles & Dittmar, 2005; Smeesters & Mandel, 2006).
Derenne, J. L., & Beresin, E. V. (2006). Body image, media, and eating disorders. Academic Psychiatry, 30(3), 257-61. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.waketech.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/196508089?accountid=15152
In recent years, sociologists, psychologists, and medical experts have gone to great lengths about the growing problem of body image. This literature review examines the sociological impact of media-induced body image on women, specifically women under the age of 18. Although most individuals make light of the ideal body image most will agree that today’s pop-culture is inherently hurting the youth by representing false images and unhealthy habits. The paper compares the media-induced ideal body image with significant role models of today’s youth and the surrounding historical icons of pop-culture while exploring various sociological perspectives surrounding this issue.
The media is a fascinating tool; it can deliver entertainment, self-help, intellectual knowledge, information, and a variety of other positive influences; however, despite its advances for the good of our society is has a particular blemish in its physique that targets young women. This blemish is seen in the unrealistic body images that it presents, and the inconsiderate method of delivery that forces its audience into interest and attendance. Women are bombarded with messages from every media source to change their bodies, buy specific products and redefine their opinion of beauty to the point where it becomes not only a psychological disease, but a physical one as well.
A study in Fiji was conducted to see if TV had changed women’s views in Fiji (506). Before TV women in Fiji found bigger women to be more attractive and desirable. However, after TV was implemented Girls in Fiji strived to be more and more like the girls in TV, skinny (506-507). "Media images that associate thinness with material success and marketing that promotes the possibility of reshaping the body have supported a perceived nexus between diligence(Work on the body), appearance(thinness), and social and material success..."(509). This study shows what a powerful impact the media can have on young girls. Women are told to be thin through the media not directly but through cryptic messages. This causes many girls to lose body confidence and sometimes starve themselves in order to fit the gender stereotype of girls being
Dittmar, Helga. "How Do "body Perfect" Ideals in the Media Have a Negative Impact on Body Image and Behaviors? Factors and Processes Related to Self and Identity." : Sussex Research Online. N.p, 6 Feb. 2012. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.
Girls' Media Consumption And The Impact Of Different Thin-Ideal Media On Body Image." Sex Roles 65.7/8 (2011): 478-490. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 21 Sept. 2015.
Yamamiya, Y., Cash, T. F., Melnyk, S. E., Posavac, H. D., & Posavac, S. S. (2005). Women's exposure to thin-and-beautiful media images: Body image effects of media-ideal internalization and impact-reduction interventions. Body image, 2(1), 74-80.
Low self esteem and an unhealthy body image will only grow stronger for a teenage girl if she views underweight and unhealthy advertisements of models looking happy with themselves. At these young ages, they do not understand how unrealistic the standards media have created, as most adult women do not fully grasp it. It is not only media that is forming these problems, but society is to blame as well. In the article The Beauty Myth and Female Consumers: The Controversial Role of Advertising, the authors state “advertising has been vilified for upholding-perhaps even creating-the emaciated standard of beauty by which girls are taught from childhood to judge the worth of their own bodies”(Stephens & Hill, 1994). Children have more access to media now than ever before, which is furthering their exposure to these ideals of looking slim and beautiful for girls, and strong and muscular for boys. From a young age, girls are being told “ you're not pretty enough” or “ you’re too fat”. These phrases only heighten their already low self esteem. It is essential that girls at a young age learn to love their bodies, that no matter how tall or how thin, they are perfect the way they
However, it is evident that the media usually presents and sexualizes women who are “young, fit and beautiful” hence probably creating self esteem issues more than confidence especially in younger women who are religious towards the media’s expectations. This stereotype of being a desired body shape only forces women to meet unattainable perfect physical standards (Gill 2015). The media bombards the youth with gender representations and the types of bodies that are deemed to be attractive. Many teenagers all around the world are desperate to lose weight to be “beautiful”.